Mooncup has partnered with environmental organisation City to Sea to call for a focus on menstrual health and gender equality as ways to tackle climate change.

The empowerment and education of women and girls are some of the most impactful tools available for avoiding emissions. Improved access to education and family planning reduces unplanned pregnancies, resulting in better health prospects for both parents and children, and less pressure on resources.

Menstrual health is a key part of reproductive education and is intrinsically linked to four of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals around health and well-being, education, gender equality and clean water and sanitation for everyone.

City to Sea, a non-profit organisation that campaigns to prevent plastic pollution at source, combines reproductive health education with environmental awareness through its Plastic-Free Periods campaign and Rethink Periods schools programme. The campaign has reached over three million people to date, whilst Rethink Periods has trained more than 1,000 teachers and school nurses nationwide.

Jasmine Tribe, Campaign Manager at City to Sea, said:

We are facing the biggest challenge of our time, and it’s crucial that we understand the root causes of our unsustainable behaviours, which are largely rooted in social injustice, inequality and lack of quality education.

The toxic combination of societal shame and lack of health education has created a growing environmental problem. Not only are we empowering people to take care of their bodies and the planet, we are also working collaboratively and across sectors, creating strong bonds and community. We can only have environmental justice when we have social justice, and for social justice to manifest we need gender equality.

Kath Clements, Mooncup Ltd. Director, said:

Centuries of stigma, shame, miseducation and sexism around menstruation aren’t just causing period poverty. They’re preventing people from receiving proper education about what is happening in their bodies. People are unaware of what’s normal, what products they can use to help manage their periods and how those products might impact the environment.

We at Mooncup Ltd. have been transforming the conversation and smashing the period taboo for almost two decades through education, activism and our ground-breaking advertising campaigns. We are proud to join forces with City to Sea and support their campaign to stop period plastic pollution, to reach more people than ever together- including those who have been historically excluded from the conversation.

As part of the partnership, £1 will go to City to Sea to support their Plastic Free Periods Campaign, for every Mooncup sold in the UK through www.mooncup.co.uk.

Photo: Mooncup